Shadowland

by Meg Cabot

  If only they had known the truth. Heather’s seat, next to Kelly Prescott, remained conspicuously vacant, while her locker—now assigned to me—was still unopenable thanks to the dent her body had made when I’d thrown her against it.

  It was sort of ironic that as I was sitting there thinking this, Kelly Prescott raised her hand and, when Mr. Walden called on her, asked if he didn’t think it was unfair, Monsignor Constantine declaring that no memorial service would be held for Heather.

  Mr. Walden leaned back in his seat and put both his feet up on his desk. Then he said, “Don’t look at me. I just work here.”

  “Well,” Kelly said, “don’t you think it’s unfair?” She turned to the rest of the class, her big, mascara-rimmed eyes appealing. “Heather Chambers went here for ten years. It’s inexcusable that she shouldn’t be memorialized in her own school. And, frankly, I think what happened yesterday was a sign.”

  Mr. Walden looked vastly amused. “A sign, Kelly?”

  “That’s right. I believe what happened here last night—and even that piece of the breezeway nearly killing Bryce—are all connected. I don’t believe Father Serra’s statue was desecrated by vandals at all, but by angels. Angels who are angry about Monsignor Constantine not allowing Heather’s parents to have her funeral here.”

  This caused a good deal of buzzing in the classroom. People looked nervously at Heather’s empty chair. Normally, I don’t talk much in school, but I couldn’t let this one go by. I said, “So you’re saying you think it was an angel who broke this window behind me, Kelly?”

  Kelly had to twist around in her seat to see me. “Well,” she said. “It could have been….”

  “Right. And you think it was angels who broke down Mr. Walden’s door, and cut off that statue’s head, and wrecked the courtyard?”

  Kelly stuck out her chin. “Yes,” she said. “I do. Angels angered over Monsignor Constantine’s decision not to allow us to memorialize Heather.”

  I shook my head. “Bull,” I said.

  Kelly raised her eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said bull, Kelly. I think your theory is full of bull.”

  Kelly turned a very interesting shade of red. I think she was probably regretting inviting me to her pool party. “You don’t know it wasn’t angels, Suze,” she said acidly.

  “Actually, I do. Because to the best of my knowledge, angels don’t bleed, and there was blood all over the carpeting back here from where the vandal hurt himself breaking in. That’s why the police cut up chunks of the rug and took them away.”

  Kelly wasn’t the only one who gasped. Everybody kind of freaked out. I probably shouldn’t have pointed out the blood—especially since it was mine—but hey, I couldn’t let her go around saying it was all because of angels. Angels, my butt. What did she think this was, anyway, Highway to Heaven?

  “Okay,” Mr. Walden said. “On that note, everybody, it’s time for second period. Susannah, could I see you a minute?”

  CeeCee turned around to waggle her white eyebrows at me. “You’re in for it now, sucker,” she hissed.

  But she had no idea how true her words were. All anybody would have to do was take a look at the Band-Aids all over my wrist, and they’d know I had firsthand knowledge of where that blood had come from.

  On the other hand, they had no reason to suspect me, did they?

  I approached Mr. Walden’s desk, my heart in my throat. He’s going to turn you in, I thought, frantically. You are so busted, Simon.

  But all Mr. Walden wanted to do was compliment me on my use of footnotes in my essay on the battle of Bladensburg, which he had noticed as I handed it in.

  “Uh,” I said. “It was really no big deal, Mr. Walden.”

  “Yes, but footnotes—” He sighed. “I haven’t seen footnotes used correctly since I taught an adult education class over at the community college. Really, you did a great job.”

  I muttered a modest thank-you. I didn’t want to admit that the reason I knew so much about the battle of Bladensburg was that I’d once helped a veteran of that battle direct a couple of his ancestors to a long-buried bag of money he’d dropped during it. It’s funny the things that hold people back from getting on with their life…or their death, I should say.

  I was about to tell Mr. Walden that while I’d have loved, under ordinary circumstances, to stick around and chat about famous American battles, I really had to go—I was going to see if Sister Ernestine was still guarding the way to Father Dom’s office—when Mr. Walden stopped me cold with these few words: “It’s funny about Kelly bringing up Heather Chambers that way, actually, Susannah.”

  I eyed him warily. “Oh? How so?”

  “Well, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but Heather was the sophomore class vice president, and now that she’s gone, we’ve been collecting nominations for a new VP. Well, believe it or not, you’ve been nominated. Twelve times so far.”

  My eyes must have bugged out of my head. I forgot all about how I had to go and see Father Dominic. “Twelve times?”

  “Yes, I know, it’s unusual, isn’t it?”

  I couldn’t believe it. “But I’ve only been going here one day!”

  “Well, you’ve made quite an impression. I myself would guess that you didn’t exactly make any enemies yesterday when you offered to break Debbie Mancuso’s fingers after school. She is not one of the better-liked girls in the class.”

  I stared at him. So Mr. Walden had overheard my little threat. The fact that he had and not sent me straight to detention made me appreciate him in a way I’d never appreciated a teacher before.

  “Oh, and I guess your pushing Bryce Martinson out of the way of that flying chunk of wood—that probably didn’t hurt much, either,” he added.

  “Wow,” I said. I guess I probably don’t need to point out that at my old school, I wouldn’t exactly have won any popularity contests. I never even bothered going out for cheerleading or running for homecoming queen. Besides the fact that at my old school cheerleading was considered a stupid waste of time and in Brooklyn it isn’t exactly a compliment to be called a queen, I never would have made either one. And no one—no one—had ever nominated me before for anything.

  I was way too flattered to follow my initial instinct, which was to say, “Thanks, but no thanks,” and run.

  “Well,” I said instead, “what does the vice president of the sophomore class have to do?”

  Mr. Walden shrugged. “Help the president determine how to spend the class budget, mostly. It’s not much, just a little over three thousand dollars. Kelly and Heather were planning on using the money to hold a dance over at the Carmel Inn, but—”

  “Three thousand dollars?” My mouth was probably hanging open, but I didn’t care.

  “Yes, I know it’s not much—”

  “And we can spend it any way we want?” My mind was spinning. “Like, if we wanted to have a bunch of cookouts down at the beach, we could do that?”

  Mr. Walden looked down at me curiously. “Sure. You have to have the approval of the rest of the class, though. I have a feeling there might be some noises from the administration about using the class money to mend the statue of Father Serra, but—”

  But whatever Mr. Walden had been about to say, he didn’t get a chance to finish. CeeCee came running back into the classroom, her purple eyes wide behind the tinted prescription lenses of her glasses.

  “Come quick!” she yelled. “There’s been an accident! Father Dominic and Bryce Martinson—”

  I whirled around, fast. “What?” I demanded way more sharply than I needed to. “What about them?”

  “I think they’re dead!”

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  I ran so fast that later, Sister Mary Claire, the track coach, asked me if I’d like to try out for the team.

  But CeeCee was wrong on all three counts. Father Dominic wasn’t dead. Neither was Bryce.

  And there’d been nothing accidental about it. />
  As near as anyone could figure out, what happened was this: Bryce went into the principal’s office for something—nobody knew what. A late pass, maybe, since he’d missed Assembly—but not, as I’d hoped, because Father Dom had got hold of him. Bryce had been standing in front of the secretary’s desk beneath the giant crucifix Adam had told me would weep tears of blood if a virgin ever graduated from the Mission Academy (the secretary hadn’t been there, she’d been out serving coffee to the cops who were still hanging around the courtyard) when the six-foot-tall cross suddenly came loose from the wall. Father Dominic opened his office door just in time to see it falling forward, where it surely would have crushed Bryce’s skull. But because Father Dominic shoved him to safety, it succeeded only in delivering a glancing blow that crushed Bryce’s collarbone.

  Unfortunately, Father Dominic ended up taking the weight of the falling cross himself. It pinned him to the office floor, smashing most of his ribs and breaking one of his legs.

  Mr. Walden and a bunch of the sisters tried to get us to go to class instead of crowding the breezeway, watching for Father Dom and Bryce to emerge from the principal’s office. Some people went when Sister Ernestine threatened everyone with detention, but not me. I didn’t care if I got detention. I had to make sure they were all right. Sister Ernestine said something very nasty about how maybe Miss Simon didn’t realize how unpleasant detention at the Mission Academy could be. I assured Sister Ernestine that if she was threatening corporal punishment, I would tell my mother, who was a local news anchor-woman and would be over here with a TV camera so fast, nobody would have time to say so much as a single Hail Mary.

  Sister Ernestine was pretty quiet after that.

  It was shortly after this that I found Doc pressed up pretty close to me. I looked down and said, “What are you doing here?” since the little kids are supposed to stay way on the other side of the school.

  “I want to see if he’s all right.” Doc’s freckles were standing out, he was so pale.

  “You’re going to get in trouble,” I warned him. Sister Ernestine was busily writing people up.

  “I don’t care,” Doc said. “I want to see.”

  I shrugged. He was a funny kid, that Doc. He wasn’t anything like his big brothers, and it wasn’t because of his red hair, either. I remembered Dopey’s teasing comment about the car keys and “Dave’s ghost,” and wondered how much, if anything, Doc knew about what had been going on lately at his school.

  Finally, after what seemed like hours, they came out. Bryce was first, strapped onto a stretcher and moaning, I’m sorry to say, like a bit of a baby. I’ve had plenty of broken and dislocated bones, and believe me it hurts, but not enough to lie there moaning. Usually when I get hurt, I don’t even notice. Like last night, for instance. When I’m really hurt all I can do is laugh because it hurts so much that it’s actually funny.

  Okay, I have to admit I sort of stopped liking Bryce so much when I saw him acting like such a baby….

  Especially when I saw Father Dom, who the paramedics wheeled out next. He was unconscious, his white hair sort of flopped over in a sad way, a jagged cut, partially covered by gauze, over his right eye. I hadn’t eaten any breakfast in my haste to get to school, and I have to admit the sight of poor Father Dominic with his eyes closed and his glasses gone, made me feel a little woozy. In fact, I might have swayed a little on my feet, and probably would have fallen over if Doc hadn’t grabbed my hand and said confidently, “I know. The sight of blood makes me sick, too.”

  But it wasn’t the sight of Father Dom’s blood seeping through the bandage on his head that had made me sick. It was the realization that I had failed. I had failed miserably. It was only dumb blind luck that Heather hadn’t succeeded in killing them both. It was only because of Father Dom’s quick thinking that he and Bryce were alive. It was no thanks to me. No thanks to me whatsoever.

  Because if I had handled things better the night before it wouldn’t have happened. It wouldn’t have happened at all.

  That’s when I got mad. I mean really mad.

  Suddenly, I knew what I had to do. I looked down at Doc. “Is there a computer here at school? One with Internet access?”

  “Sure,” Doc said, looking surprised. “In the library. Why?”

  I dropped his hand. “Never mind. Go back to class.”

  “Suze—”

  “Anyone who isn’t in his or her classroom in one minute,” Sister Ernestine said imperiously, “will be suspended indefinitely!”

  Doc tugged on my sleeve.

  “What’s going on?” he wanted to know. “Why do you need a computer?”

  “Nothing,” I said. Behind the wrought-iron gate that led to the parking lot, the paramedics slammed the doors to the ambulances in which they’d loaded Father Dom and Bryce. A second later, they were pulling away in a whine of sirens and a flurry of flashing lights. “Just…it’s stuff you wouldn’t understand, David. It isn’t scientific.”

  Doc said, with no small amount of indignation, “I can understand lots of stuff that isn’t scientific. Music, for instance. I’ve taught myself to play Chopin on my electronic keyboard back home. That isn’t scientific. The appreciation of music is purely emotional as is the appreciation of art. I can understand art and music. So come on, Suze,” he said. “You can tell me. Does it have anything to do with…what we were talking about the other night?”

  I turned to gaze down at him in surprise. He shrugged. “It was a logical conclusion. I made a cursory examination of the statue—cursory because I was unable to approach it as closely as I would have liked thanks to the crime scene tape and evidence team—and was unable to discern any saw marks or other indications of how the head was severed. There is no possible way bronze can be cut that cleanly without the use of some sort of heavy machinery, but such machinery would never fit through—”

  “Mr. Ackerman!” Sister Ernestine sounded like she meant business. “Would you like to be written up?”

  David looked irritated. “No,” he said.

  “No, what?”

  “No, Sister.” He looked back at me, apologetically. “I guess I better go. But can we talk more about this tonight at home? I found out some stuff about—well, what you asked me. You know.” He widened his eyes meaningfully. “About the house.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Great. Okay.”

  “Mr. Ackerman!”

  David turned to look at the nun. “Hold on a minute, okay, Sister? I’m trying to have a conversation here.”

  All of the blood left the middle-aged woman’s face. It was incredible.

  She reacted as childishly as if she were the twelve-year-old, and not David.

  “Come with me, young man,” she said, seizing hold of David’s ear. “I can see your new stepsister has put some pretty big-city ideas into your head about how a boy speaks to his elders—”

  David let out a noise like a wounded animal, but went along with the woman, hunched up like a shrimp, he was in so much pain. I swear I wouldn’t have done anything—anything at all—if I hadn’t suddenly noticed Heather standing just inside the gate, laughing her head off.

  “Oh, God,” she cried, gasping a little, she was laughing so hard. “If you could have seen your face when you heard Bryce was dead! I swear! It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!” She stopped laughing long enough to toss her long hair and say, “You know what? I think I’m going to clobber a few more people with stuff today. Maybe I’ll start with that little guy over there—”

  I stepped toward her. “You lay one hand on my brother, and I’ll stuff you right back into that grave you crawled out of.”

  Heather only laughed, but Sister Ernestine, who I realized belatedly thought I was talking to her, let go of David so fast you’d have thought the kid had suddenly caught on fire.

  “What did you say?”

  Sister Ernestine was turning sort of purple. Behind her, Heather laughed delightedly. “Oh, now you’ve done it. Detention for a week!”
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br />   And just like that, she disappeared, leaving behind yet another mess for me to clean up.

  As much to my surprise as, I think, her own, Sister Ernestine could only stare at me. David stood there rubbing his ear and looking bewildered. I said as quickly as I could, “We’ll go back to our classrooms now. We were only concerned about Father Dominic, and wanted to see him off. Thanks, Sister.”

  Sister Ernestine continued to stare at me. She didn’t say anything. She was a big lady, not quite as tall as me in my two-inch heels—I was wearing black Batgirl boots—but much wider, with exceptionally large breasts. Between them dangled a silver cross. Sister Ernestine fingered this cross unconsciously as she stared at me. Later, Adam, who’d watched the entire event unfold, would say that Sister Ernestine was holding up the cross as if to protect herself from me. That is untrue. She merely touched the cross as if uncertain it was still there. Which it was. It most certainly was.

  I guess that was when David stopped being Doc to me, and started being David.

  “Don’t worry,” I told him, just before we parted ways, because he looked so worried and cute and all with his red hair and freckles and sticky-outy ears. I reached out and rumpled some of that red hair. “Everything will be all right.”

  David looked up at me. “How do you know?” he asked.

  I took my hand away.

  Because, of course, the truth was I didn’t. Know everything was going to be all right, I mean. Far from it, as a matter of fact.

  Chapter

  Fifteen

  Lunch was almost over by the time I cornered Adam. I had spent almost the entire period in the library staring into a computer monitor. I still hadn’t eaten, but the truth was, I wasn’t hungry at all.

  “Hey,” I said, sitting down next to him and crossing my legs so that my black skirt hiked up just the littlest bit. “Did you drive to school this morning?”

  Adam pounded on his chest. He’d started choking on a Frito the minute I’d sat down. When he finally got it down, he said proudly, “I sure did. Now that I got my license, I am a driving machine. You should’ve come out with us last night, Suze. We had a blast. After we went to the Coffee Clutch, we took a spin along Seventeen Mile Drive. Have you ever done that? Man, with last night’s moon, the ocean was so beautiful—”